urbanSTL

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:

Moorlander wrote:^ agreed

^^True, some do feel that way tcs.



What bugs me though are the one sided stories that sensationalize the bad things in this town. We are trying to create some momentum and change the perceptions of the layman county folk and these stories take away from that. It's not difficult to see how this might frustrate people. All media outlets use this tactic so I don't really blame the PD.

But it's not their job to perpetuate momentum. Their job is to report the news. And a murder downtown will get more press than a restaurant opening. It's been that way for well over 100 years.

Try rereading my post. Thank you for restating my argument in your own words. What were you saying about reading comprehension the other day?

Arch City wrote:Clayton has been snagging firms from downtown because large new buildings have been built, which could accommodate them. Ernst and Young moved into the Plaza in Clayton because it was large enough and new. Ernst & Young and Husch & Eppenberger LLC then damn near took up the whole building, which I believe is about 307,000 square feet.

How many of those large new buildings in Clayton have been subsidized?

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:

Moorlander wrote:^ agreed

^^True, some do feel that way tcs.



What bugs me though are the one sided stories that sensationalize the bad things in this town. We are trying to create some momentum and change the perceptions of the layman county folk and these stories take away from that. It's not difficult to see how this might frustrate people. All media outlets use this tactic so I don't really blame the PD.

But it's not their job to perpetuate momentum. Their job is to report the news. And a murder downtown will get more press than a restaurant opening. It's been that way for well over 100 years.

It seems that it is their job to perpetuate negative momentum in St. Louis. The collective mindset of the general population about the regions' central city is the main influence of where that population will choose to live, work, shop, etc. The Post says, "As far away from the city as possible!" and in St. Louis that's where the population goes. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, spawning sprawl and furthering the decay of the core. Thanks, guys!

Yes, yes of course. An average issue of the Post-Dispatch spends many more column inches talking about living, working and shopping in outlying areas than it does about news about the City and inner suburbs. I must point that out to the editors and tell them what a good job they're doing in parallelling the interests and locales of our readers.

Maybe the City should also make available/be a lot more public about incentives to businesses with, say, 20 or fewer employees.

And work to phase out the earnings tax.

It'll never happen, but several years ago -- about the time the City pulled the brilliant move of exempting only those gazillionaires with stock options -- I suggested that the earnings tax be modified to exempt the first, say, $10,000 of earnings and anything above $100,000. The former would help the huge number of City residents with relatively low earnings; the latter would recognize, as Alderwoman Krewson the CPA and her pals failed to last time, that the vast majority of business-owners making location decisions (like, say, lawyers) do not get their bonuses via stock options.



Over, say, a ten-year period, the $10,000 number would be increased until it hit the $100,000 number.



Talk amongst yourselves.

DeBaliviere wrote:I think the headline on that column is different than the one in the print edition I received this morning.

The headline in the print edition reads:

Centene’s decision puts law firms in the spotlight

Online it reads:

Downtown office glut could get even bigger

If you keep hearing people say that the Post portrays an overly negative view of the city over and over and from different sources, maybe you should consider that there is some truth to that statement.



Then again, maybe that's like trying to convince Bill O'Reilly that his 'no spin zone' is in fact heavily biased.



I guess next headline should read, "Everyone is imagining things."

SoulardD wrote:If you keep hearing people say that the Post portrays an overly negative view of the city over and over and from different sources, maybe you should consider that there is some truth to that statement.



Then again, maybe that's like trying to convince Bill O'Reilly that his 'no spin zone' is in fact heavily biased.



I guess next headline should read, "Everyone is imagining things."

Actually, I hear people say "Downtown is dangerous, why would you go there?" much more often. I generally counter that statement with facts rather than simply assuming that if people say it, it has to be true.

STLtoSA wrote:360 WOULD TAKE YOU NOWHERE. I THINK YOU MEAN 180 DEGREES.

Well, as Cardinals broadcasting legend Mike Shannon once said, "the wind has shifted 360 degrees".



Folks, I think it's time to take the "Post-Dispatch is negative" rants to the STLtoday.com forums. Or why not drop the columnists a line and let them know what you think? For now, let's get back to talking about Lake Dewitt... I mean Pujols Pond... I mean Ballpark Village.

JMedwick wrote:

DeBaliviere wrote:

DeBaliviere wrote:I think the headline on that column is different than the one in the print edition I received this morning.

The headline in the print edition reads:

Centene’s decision puts law firms in the spotlight

Online it reads:

Downtown office glut could get even bigger

One is an example of responsible journalism, the other an example of the type of sensationalistic journalism of facts for which the Post is rightly derided.

I really must look into this "journalism of facts" thing and discover how it can be sensationalistic.

J. Bonwich, I always respect your point of view (even given our rocky start) and I understand your defensive/pro PD stance, but come on even you can realize the Post isn't perfect.

^ and ^^



1) I'm the last person who would ever equate the Post with perfection. But y'all frequently (IMHO) focus on entirely the wrong perceived problems. This is a citycentric board, and so I pretty much expect folks out here to think that the Post gives the City short shrift. In comparison to how many readers actually live (or even work) in the City, however, I'd bet that there's a very disproportionate amount of attention that we pay to a relatively small overall geographic part of our readership area.



2) I hadn't read Dave's piece, but now that I have, given its content, both headlines are accurate.



3) Y'all (and we) now live and die by the immediacy of the Internet. The first headline (what we call our "Web headline") is put on very early in the process, frequently before the story has been completely edited. The second one (the print headline) includes a little time for more thought. The web headline is much more constrained by space.



You may, if you wish, continue to believe in some vast left-wing conspiracy and "sensationalistic journalism of facts." You may also, if you wish, choose to believe that we live in a free-market economy. A more likely explanation, however, is that life moves pretty fast, and you simply need to look around at multiple sources and draw some sort of synthesis, or you might miss it. (And, of course, do try not to kill anyone while you're driving your car around Ireland.)

JMedwick wrote:

DeBaliviere wrote:And work to phase out the earnings tax.

See, I have never through that the earnings tax in and of itself is such a bad idea; more so, the way the earnings tax is used. In 2007, the earnings tax brought in $135,000,000. This money was then used by the City for basic services, such as public safety and improving parks. I, like others, would love to see the day when the City didn't need to collect an earnings tax. That said, even when that day comes, I think the City should still collect (even if at a reduced rate) the earnings tax, using it for high profile and important public infrastructure projects. When people on this forum complain that we can't fund light rail or street car development in the City of St. Louis (or any other of the laundry list of uses we would love to spend others money on), look no further than the earnings tax for a potential revenue source. High profile improvements that clearly demonstrate to City and non-city residents the value added through the tax is a big part of overcoming its stigma.

I just think at this point, it would be good to level the playing field, so to speak. Eliminate the reasons for companies to locate downtown. While I'm not sure how the cost of business in the city compares to that of the county (earnings tax vs. cheaper rent, etc.), I think the impact of the earnings tax is more psychological than anything - people just don't want to pay it, especially when they are unaware of any added value to doing business downtown.

[soapbox] Because the Post is a for-profit institution, I don't begrudge them choosing the headlines that they think will result in the highest readership. That said, journalists/ media sources like to paint themselves as non-biased and generally above the fray, which when working for for-profit institutions, they are anything but. I have always through the term "4th estate" was a very appropriate definition of how the media view themselves. [/soapbox]

SoulardD wrote:The Post says, "As far away from the city as possible!" and in St. Louis that's where the population goes. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, spawning sprawl and furthering the decay of the core. Thanks, guys!

Could you post a link to that article? I get the paper everyday and must have missed it.

DeBaliviere wrote:I just think at this point, it would be good to level the playing field, so to speak. Eliminate the reasons for companies to locate downtown.

Why?